Message of support from His Beatitude Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa to the people of the Ukraine

It is with great sadness that we watch what is happening in Ukraine in 2022, which brings to life the horrific memories of the aftermath of World War II, and after mourning so many victims of the coronavirus, we now see before us the new victims of the paranoid war in Ukraine.

As we prepare to enter Holy and Great Lent, a period of repentance and contemplation, we see our neighborhood bleeding. The saddest thing is that all this is happening between two Orthodox, sister states.

We recently tasted a similar ecclesiastical attack in afflicted Africa, a continent that is undoubtedly under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Ancient Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa, which has been fighting for two thousand years to preach the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.

We pray that logic will prevail and that the bloodshed will stop immediately, for the good of humanity because as the modern Russian Saint Sophronius of Essex says: "the greatest sin is war."

The frightened eyes of innocent children beg us for help. We sympathize with the innocent victims of the unjust war, we sympathize with those who lost their loved ones, we sympathize with the refugees who have been forced to flee their homes, and we continue to pray for world peace and the stability of the Holy Churches of God.

May the Peace of Almighty God reign over the whole world.